Janusz Myszkowski first thought he heard the explosion of a grain silo. “But this was different,” says the 56-year-old farmer, a mustachioed man in a black undershirt with a cross on a chain. In his doorway, within walking distance of the Ukrainian border, he talks about the rocket that fell on the neighboring village of Przewodów. “It was such a huge bang, it had to be something military.” He’s still upset. ‘We were afraid of this. And now it’s happened.’ Besides the shock, there is sadness for the two deaths. “One of them was a friend of mine,” he says with a sad look.
After three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, Przewodów, a village in the eastern countryside with barely a thousand souls, was rocked by an explosion. It was immediately linked by many to the massive Russian missile strikes on Ukraine that day, the largest since the invasion began. The possibility that one of those missiles now landed on the territory of NATO member state Poland, put the world on alert for a further escalation of the war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda said the missile strike was not an attack on Poland. It would be an ‘unfortunate incident’, presumably by Ukrainian anti-aircraft guns. Duda’s statement led to relief, but no less shock. ‘One of my children called me to move,’ says 60-year-old beet farmer Daniel (he doesn’t want a last name in the newspaper). He himself does not live in Przewodów, but further in the border area. He points past the mounds of sugar beets, past the fields, to a forest. “There is Ukraine already.”
The war was already close
War has always been close in Poland, however exceptional and shocking the Przewodów rocket impact is. Not just geographically. The country is home to more than a million Ukrainian refugees and the airport of southeastern Rzeszów is the European hub for arms supplies to Ukraine. Together with the Baltic countries, Poland has been at the forefront of sanctions against Russia and support for Ukraine. Until Ukraine wins the war, the whole world is an unsafe place, Poland argues. What happened in Przewodów is an all too clear example of this.
The day after the rocket hit, the village is cut off from the outside world. “Only for residents,” says a police officer grumbling. But the villagers are nowhere to be seen, which may have to do with the journalists present, who seem to outnumber them. Or with the low-hanging rain clouds, which make everything wet and muddy. The investigation is still ongoing, various agencies are present to collect evidence. Military trucks and police cars drive in and out of the village. Small groups of cops in black ponchos walk across the rolling fields, looking like large crows from a distance.
The Polish government wants to proceed carefully, in close cooperation with NATO and the United States. This was already apparent from the cold-blooded approach – exceptional for this sometimes unpredictable government – when the first reports of a possible Russian missile attack trickled in on Tuesday. The government’s sparing communication came under criticism on Tuesday evening, but countering speculation and information chaos was the main goal, Prime Minister Morawiecki said after midnight. Also on Wednesday, the Polish government mainly tried to keep the peace. The final results of the investigation are yet to come.
Keep calm
Keeping calm is also important for the good relationship between Poland and Ukraine, which is now showing cracks for the first time since the beginning of the Russian invasion. President Zelensky denies that the missile was Ukrainian and wants his country to participate in the investigation. The Polish government does not exclude that Russia deliberately provoked by bombing extra close to the border. In any case, Warsaw blames the Russians for the main responsibility: if they had not invaded Ukraine, this never would have happened.
In the meantime, Przewodów tries to pick up the thread again. That will not be easy in this small and tight-knit community. ‘The words of Duda (about the mistake, ed.) are calming, but for us this is just the beginning,’ says Federico Viola, Vice President of Agrocom, an agricultural company on a former collective farm, just outside Przewodów. The two victims, a tractor driver and a warehouse worker, were Viola’s employees. “They worked here for 22 years.”
The mood in the office is depressed. “We still have trouble believing it.” In the coming period, the company will help the relatives as best as possible. But Viola, who left Italy for the Polish countryside more than thirty years ago, does not want to feel any more insecure than before Tuesday. “I can’t live like this.”
Others do feel unsafe, such as farmer Myszkowski. “Since the beginning of the war.” After his fears came true, Myszkowski felt a feeling that millions of Ukrainians have known all too well since February. “One day you go to bed in a peaceful land. And the next day you’re in the middle of a war.’